Expired licenses can now be renewed, says LTO

According to Mendoza, drivers should renew and claim their plastic license cards from 16 to 30 April and failure to do so will result in penalties

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) on Tuesday announced that driver’s licenses that have expired on 1 April to 31 August 2023 and those expiring this month can now be renewed at its offices.

This comes as Department of Transportation (DoTr) Secretary Jaime Bautista disclosed that at least 600,000 license cards were delivered to LTO this week which will augment the one million cards previously distributed by the office in the last two weeks.

“The 600,000 cards will fill the backlog from the previous year. We still have an additional 1 million that was delivered to the LTO recently,” said DoTr Secretary Jaime Bautista.

The turnover of the cards continued after the Court of Appeals lifted the writ of preliminary injunction issued by a Quezon City court in 2023.

Bautista said that at least 2.2 million more cards will be delivered to the LTO by May, and will be distributed to various LTO district and satellite offices.

“Now that the writ is lifted, we can now proceed with the issuance of license cards for new DL applicants and those who will renew,” Bautista said.

Meantime, LTO chief Vigor Mendoza II said they expect the delivery of the 3.2 million cards within 45 days since the first delivery of 1 million cards last 25 March.

He added that drivers’ licenses that expired from 1 September to 31 December, 2023 and expiring from 1 May to 31 May 2024 should be renewed from 1 May to 31 May 2024.

He added that drivers should now apply for renewal as the plastic cards are already available. He also stressed that drivers should renew and claim their plastic license cards from 16 to 30 April and failure to do so will result in penalties.

“‘Drivers whose licenses had expired from April to August 2023 must renew their licenses and get their plastic cards,” Mendoza said, adding that only motorists with expired licenses from April to August 2023 may claim plastic cards because the available supply was enough for them.

The LTO previously said that as of March 2024, its backlog was at 4.1 million driver’s license plastic cards.

“It’s the supply side because our supplier does not deliver it in one go. In fact, what was delivered to us is 1.6 million out of 3.2 million, so we, on the supply side, cannot cater to all the backlog of 4.1 million in one blow,” Mendoza said.